The DOWA Group started as a mining, smelting and refining company and has endeavored to improve technologies for more than a century. DOWA has established a unique business model covering investigation of resources, mining and recycling. In the Nonferrous Metals business we extract useful metals from natural resources. In the Metal Processing business we add value to the extracted metals. In the Electronic Materials business we further improve the functions of metal materials and, in the Environmental Management & Recycling business we detoxify waste, separate and collect metals from waste.
Our present lines of business are connected with each other and operate focusing on metals and based on technologies that we have accumulated and cherished in this growing economy and changing social environment.
Corporate History
Denzaburo Fujita, founder of DOWA group obtained Kosaka Mine from the Government in 1884. This mine is the foundation of the DOWA group. The "black ores" excavated there, included valuable metals such as gold and silver but also many impure substances. Various elements were also intermingled in them in a complex manner, making smelting and refining difficult. In 1902 the company succeeded in developing a unique smelting and refining method called flash smelting after many failures and finally succeeded in extracting and smelting gold, silver and copper from those ores. By overcoming these ore challenges, the DOWA group has the world leading technologies for collecting, smelting and refining metal elements. Those diversified business activities of DOWA at present is based on these smelting technologies.
Efforts to Resolve Social Issues through Business Activities
The DOWA group strives to resolve various social issues as part of its regular business activities. The DOWA group regards effective utilization of resources as an important social issue, as utilization of limited metal resources is the basis of DOWA’s business.
For example, precious and rare metals are indispensable to automobiles, electronic and electrical appliances that are the backbone of the Japanese industry. However, they are only produced in a limited number of countries. We may not be supplied with sufficient amount of those metals in connection with increasing demands of emerging countries. This issue of depletion of resources is not only related to rare metals but also to familiar metals such as gold, silver and zinc. Mines are forecasted to last for about twenty years for gold, twenty-four for silver and twenty-one for zinc*.
*Extracted from JOGMEC Metal Mining Data Book 2011.
